Awwwww geeeeeeeeeeeze!!! Has everyone gone off the deep end?!?

First Lady Laura Bush joins what I will call the class of elites steeped in denial. This from here:

COVINGTON, Louisiana (Reuters) - First lady Laura Bush joined her husband in defending his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday and said it was possible some critics were being sexist in their opposition to Harriet Miers. "That's possible, I think that's possible," Mrs. Bush said when asked on NBC's "Today Show" whether criticism that Miers lacked intellectual heft were sexist in nature.

and

"I know Harriet well, I know how accomplished she is, I know how many times she's broken the glass ceiling herself. She is a role model for young women around our country," she said.

::::Sigh:::: So now we in the "Coalition of the Illin'" are not only throwing tantrums, we are also "sexists". Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this how democrats deal with those whom they want to avoid engaging in substantive debate? And from here:

"I think people are not looking at her accomplishments. They're not realizing that she was the first elected woman to be the head of the Texas Bar Association, for instance. And all the other things. She was the first woman managing partner of a major law firm. She was the first woman hired by her law firm."

That may be all well and good. More power to her. But that in and of itself says absolutely ZIP, ZERO, NADA on how she will adjudicate as a member of SCOTUS. It's the lack of evidence of originalist philosophy, stupid! I would have been perfectly happy, nay, I say I would be dancing a jig in the streets of St. Cloud had Janice Roberts Brown been nominated, so don't insult our intelligence by flipping the sexist card, ok, Laura? You're better than that. As John Fund puts it:

...that ignores the fact that every Republican president over the past half century has stumbled when it comes to naming nominees to the high court. Consider the record:

After leaving office, Dwight Eisenhower was asked by a reporter if he had made any mistakes as president. "Two," Ike replied. "They are both on the Supreme Court." He referred to Earl Warren and William Brennan, both of whom became liberal icons.

Richard Nixon personally assured conservatives that Harry Blackmun would vote the same way as his childhood friend, Warren Burger. Within four years, Justice Blackmun had spun Roe v. Wade out of whole constitutional cloth. Chief Justice Burger concurred in Roe, and made clear he didn't even understand what the court was deciding: "Plainly," he wrote, "the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand."

Gerald Ford personally told members of his staff that John Paul Stevens was "a good Republican, and would vote like one." Justice Stevens has since become the leader of the court's liberal wing.

An upcoming biography of Sandra Day O'Connor by Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic includes correspondence from Ronald Reagan to conservative senators concerned about her scant paper trail. The message was, in effect: Trust me. She's a traditional conservative. From Roe v. Wade to racial preferences, she has proved not to be. Similarly, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation recalls the hard sell the Reagan White House made on behalf of Anthony Kennedy in 1987, after the Senate rejected Robert Bork. "They even put his priest on the phone with us to assure us he was solid on everything," Mr. Weyrich recalls. From term limits to abortion to the juvenile death penalty to the overturning of a state referendum on gay rights, Justice Kennedy has often disappointed conservatives.

Most famously, White House chief of staff John Sununu told Pat McGuigan, an aide to Mr. Weyrich, that the appointment of David Souter in 1990 would please conservatives. "This is a home run, and the ball is still ascending. In fact, it's just about to leave earth orbit," he told Mr. McGuigan. At the press conference announcing the appointment, the elder President Bush asserted five times that Justice Souter was "committed to interpreting, not making the law." The rest is history.

With so much at stake riding on this particular SCOTUS nomination, we cannot and will not settle for any less than the best candidate, whether it be a man, a woman or Mork from Ork. Harriet Miers has not proven herself in any way, shape, manner or form to be that Candidate.


Fred Barnes laments:

And yet, both of them (the "conservative intellectual priesthood" and conservatives who just want to whine), I think, have basically dissed President Bush, whose record on judicial appointments is really extraordinary. I mean, the conservatives he's nominated, that he's fought for, that he's re-nominated, that he's got on the court, and to think that suddenly he's wimped out, which many of them do, I just think is unfair to President Bush.

While it may be true that we have "dissed" Bush, it is certainly out of love and concern for the future of our nation over our love of politics. And it most certainly doesn't help the cause of these "steeped in denial" elites to use democrat-style attack tactics in response to substantive, thoughtful criticism.

***UPDATE***

My friend Uncle Ben at Hammerswing75 also laments the backstabbing going on by the GOP leadership.